Question 20·Medium·Inferences

The cities with faster resolution gave staff the power to reassign cases and require departments to provide status updates. What happened where clerks simply forwarded each request to the appropriate department? There, resolution times didn't improve, so creating an office alone wasn't enough. The blank asks when an office is most likely to reduce delays, which means we need to connect the faster work to what staff could do beyond passing requests along.

Could the easier place to submit requests explain the difference in speed? The passage says residents in both groups of cities benefited from a single, convenient place to submit requests. Because both groups had that benefit but only one got faster service, convenience can't explain the gap in resolution times. So we look at what happened after residents submitted requests, where the groups differed in whether staff could direct departments' work or only pass on requests.

We can now predict what the findings suggest: delays are more likely to fall when staff have power over how departments handle requests. The phrase actively coordinate means guiding how departments work together, which fits both reassigning cases and making departments report on progress. It completes most likely to reduce administrative delays when with the staff powers linked to faster resolution, without claiming that every office will succeed. Choice B.